


Refactoring

by Asimiento



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 16:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asimiento/pseuds/Asimiento
Summary: So long to whatever this is, you’ve had a good run.





	Refactoring

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very silly and mostly indulgent exercise written in a rush so anyway, don't take any of this too seriously.

Richard Hendricks has never considered himself a team player. 

The other people in his life have often either been too slow or too aggressive, and the few spaces he’d taken a shine to always seemed to come with its own insular cyclical system, that he could never seem to penetrate. Home, Tulsa, Stanford—always on the outside, looking in. Even in the Valley, that sun-dappled Eden of the new gold rush.

Inherently undesirable: that was what he believed himself to be. Doomed to the fringes. Mercifully, Palo Alto accepted substitutes: money, power, talent. Little of the first two but plenty of the last, with change to spare. Desirability be damned, Richard Hendricks knows he's a genius. If he plays his cards right that can get him anywhere. Smart enough to disrupt the Valley, its old guard and its monopolistic mafias, its narrow demands and insular cyclical systems. Intellect, talent—that generates his own gravitational pull.

All he has to be is the smartest person in the right place, at the right time. And he is so, so close to that moment.

Richard doesn’t need to be a team player. Gavin Belson can stick that acquisition offer where the sun don’t shine.

“Fair enough, Richard. I shall look forward to the fight,” Gavin says, and it genuinely sounds like he is raring for a fight.

He sneaks back into the house from the back. Soon as the lights switch on, he’s staring at Jared staring right back at him. Or more specifically, he’s staring directly into Jared’s eyes. He doesn’t know if it’s the low light but somehow they glow a vivid, almost chemical blue. Richard wonders if this is one of those teenage experiences he missed out on, caught sneaking back home past his curfew. He isn’t sure if he’s meant to feel shocked or guilty, first.

“Jared,” He says quietly, loud gulp, one foot trying to dig a hole through the floorboards. He looks down. “Have you been waiting there all night?”

Jared gets up from his chair, holding his accusatory glance. He moves with even steps. There were times when Richard thought, if he peered in close enough, maybe he'd find cameras behind that glassy blue film. Copper veins wrapped in rubber, silicon skin carved with all the right creases. Maybe if he moved closer he could hear a cooling pump where a heart should be.

“Richard, where were you?” Jared asks, stern but worried.

A cold feeling rises in Richard, settling into a lump in his chest. It’s not unfamiliar, but he’s never had to be on his toes around Jared before. He’s not afraid. He’s not angry. He's unsure what this is.

A warning signal flashes in his brain.

“Gavin Belson wanted to make an acquisition offer,” he says truthfully.

“What did you tell him?” Jared asks, like he’s bracing for the worst.

Jared doesn’t trust him. He expected an interrogation from Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Jared always has his back. Or, had. Richard considers how to hedge his bets. He tries not to give away any tells—no ear pulling, finger or toe tapping, lip biting.

“I declined,” he answers, like it should have been obvious.

Jared sighs, mouth and eyes relaxing from their saucer span and tight line, into a smile that Richard might be misreading as fond. He narrows his eyes and smiles back as if to say  _‘silly you, to doubt me.’_  The lump in his chest melts away, sweet relief. For a moment, Richard thinks Jared’s eyes might be watering.

“I knew you’d make the right decision,” Jared says quietly, almost a whisper. His smile slants lopsided, like he’s not quite sure he believes the words that are coming out of his mouth.

Richard mentally draws up a quick flowchart of all the possible responses he could make to either the direct statement, the dissonant gesture, or mixed signal combination. He settles for a nod and pads off to his room.

* * *

Richard can’t quite recall the last time he’s sensed someone just _staring._  Probably one of those Greek parties in Stanford, blue strobe flashing through low orange lights, stacks of red plastic cups, seniors and dropouts on the prowl for unsuspecting freshmen to heckle or proposition. It’s a frisson he’s always associated with chaos. The dread of predation, a pocket of quiet in the middle of a spectacular disaster. Not exactly the bright lights, polished marble and fruit platters of a Bream-Hall party.

Chemical blue and camera eyes. Jared is staring at Richard like he’s waiting for him to stumble onto a land mine. Not exactly cringing but he can tell when Jared is bracing himself, apologetic slouch stretching up into a tense line. Richard ducks past a circle of people he recognizes from Raviga and Hooli’s own ventures arm. He shuffles to the buffet table in the corner and tries to look mildly interested in the spread until the frisson goes away.

Someone grabs Jared’s attention, and Richard peers up from the rim of his flute, only half listening to the guy bragging about how he jumped ship from KPCB to join Bream-Hall. Something about promising a securities acquisition, he doesn’t care. Jared is speaking to somebody familiar—a former Wall Street quant he once met at some fundraiser in Menlo Park. Richard looks at the gleam of her manicured nails, platinum hair tied into a neat and tight bun, blue dress pressed just so. Polished and pleasant, far from the sharklike aggression Richard remembers as she laughed off fraudulent risk models as if she spoke of some silly game and not another sign of an impending financial crisis.

Richard considers the Bream-Hall floor. The polished sharks with their gleaming hair and thousand-dollar handbags, five-figure loyalty, endless dishing.  You don’t get to the top without playing a little dirty. They get it.

Jared is genuinely an idiot if he thinks Richard is the only one who needs to be subject to all this unjust scrutiny.

 

* * *

 

Richard is not terrified of Jared. That would be patently ridiculous. 

It’s just that Jared used to look at him like he had all the answers in the world. Like he was magnetic but untouchable. Now, Jared pushes back and keeps him in line. On the worst days, Richard swivels back and forth between sucking it up because that’s what’s good for Pied Piper, and considering making life hell for Jared until he quits.

The thing is, when Jared isn’t always crouching down for Richard and saying yes to every little whim of his, he’s better at moving money around. Like investor relations run on a frequency only he seems to be tuned in to. Maybe he has his own Dijsktran equivalent of Middle-Out. Jared can nod and smile and shake hands and manage smooth video conferences that lead to invoices and postdated AR’s with dollar values running up strings of zeroes that boggle Richard’s mind. Jared can perform all the social obligations Richard has always found too disingenuous to truly care for. Richard can’t bother to put on a believable smile for the press if he doesn’t feel like it. Jared, somehow, manages to talk him into all of it anyway.

There’s a low frequency tension to them now, but Pied Piper is actually in a comfortable place. Maybe it’s never going to go away, but Richard thinks that might not be such a bad thing.

They finish up a call from Seoul about new API integrations. Jared immediately folds his laptop and fixes his messenger bag, ready to leave. No  _‘I think that went really well’_ or even an  _‘I’m glad they liked our offer.’_ Richard checks the wall clock and the time flashes traffic green. Way past office hours, but it’s not like any of them ever gave a fuck.

“So. That was good,” he half says and half asks, both because he truly isn’t sure, and pivoting declaratives into inquiries is just another one of those twitchy nerd mannerisms he can never seem to unlearn.

“Yes. Yes it was, absolutely,” Jared affirms, like it’s ridiculous that Richard is even asking.

Jared’s eyes soften and Richard, for a moment, thinks they’re back to that time when things were easier between the both of them. When they weren’t just business partners, but also good friends, and then some.

Then, Jared gets up and Richard abruptly feels bereft.

 

* * *

 

Jared has a board seat. The other members like him better than they like Richard, even if Richard is the one who knows the best applications for his own goddamn IP. Jared can follow the Gestalt of the tech, but without really grasping much of the fundamental underpinnings of each system stack, each node in the complex network of hardware and software strung to the Pied Piper mesh, he knows fuck all about scaling up. And yet, every time he votes against Richard, every other member follows suit.

When everyone else says no to a Tel-Aviv satellite HQ, Richard knows he’s on the verge of losing it.

He finds Jared in one of the common restrooms a floor down from the boardroom, washing his hands.

“What the fuck?” He says, as meaningfully and eloquently as he can manage.

“Richard, we’ve talked about this before,” Jared replies calmly, like Richard’s the one who’s lost common sense. “Singapore is performing better when you look past the active user figures.”

Never mind Survivorship Bias. Never mind political restrictions. Never mind whatever the fuck else Jared hasn’t considered. It’s _his_  tech. So what if he’s a little protective?

Richard rolls his eyes.

Jared shoots him apologetic, saucer-wide eyes he hasn’t seen nearly a year and god, he maybe slightly more than slightly misses it.

“Richard, regardless of what you must be thinking, that decision wasn’t a personal attack.” He sounds _really sorry_  despite not actually apologizing. Huh.

Jared is tall, but he’s never actually cut an imposing figure, even now that he’s consciously trying to correct his slouch. They’re close enough that he should be crowding Richard, but Richard still feels taller anyway.

“You are my Captain, and I swore to you that I would help you steer this ship right,” Jared says.

It’s not a convincing follow-up, but whatever. Richard belatedly realizes how close they are, like they’ve been unknowingly drawn in by that low-frequency tension. Their own gravitational pull. 

“You think I’m not steering my own ship right, huh?” He taunts, under his breath.

He grabs Jared by the collar and backs him into the sink, and in the middle of deciding if he’s going to strangle him or do something else, Jared gives him a _look_  that’s halfway between frightened and incensed. Richard leans in and presses their mouths together. Jared shoves his tongue in.

They’ve both officially lost it.

When they part, Richard pulls Jared all the way to the door so he can lock it with one hand and unbuckle Jared’s belt with the other. Jared has both his hands on Richard’s neck, not nearly tight enough but Richard has a feeling that if he uses his teeth, Jared will actually strangle him. They move all the way to the end with their mouths still locked, and Richard shoves his hand down Jared’s underwear and strokes aggressively. _Quite literally, fuck you_ , he thinks _._

Jared makes a choked sound when he comes and Richard thinks, that’s it, if he stores this in his brain now he’ll never unhear it, he’ll want and want it and that’ll be _it_  for the both of them. _So long to whatever this is, you’ve had a good run_.

 

* * *

 

Richard has always been the kind of coder who commits and commits and commits and sets aside lump-sum debugs for later. He’s not careful enough to watch out for every single misstep, and creeping carefully through code or life or whatever else is always something he’s considered a waste of time. He’ll stumble into sex and whatever messy human relations follow, and deal with the cumulative fuck-ups later.

They have sex every time one of them does something the other can’t deal with. By week three, they’ve exhausted every sensible space in the Pied Piper offices, so it only makes sense to move it back to either of their places.

When Richard puts his foot down on the IPO valuation he’s keen on, Jared blows him in his living room while pressing a finger in him, and Richard’s brain is too fried to consider if this is Jared’s way of making him budge for a higher market debut.

Right after he comes, Jared pushes him into the couch and asks him, rather delicately, if he’d let Jared fuck him. Richard pulls him up for a kiss, dragging his tongue along Jared’s teeth, which is maybe the most eloquent _yes_  he can manage. Jared presses him down. He moves with an agonizing languor that makes Richard keep gasping for air. It drags on for long enough that Richard manages to get half hard again and Jared asks, rather delicately again, if Richard could please touch himself. And so he does, in stuttering, uneven motions that make Jared reach over his hands until their rhythms sync up.

It’d been a while since Richard found himself on the receiving end of Jared’s intense brand of reverence, and when he looks up at Jared watching intently, it almost feels a little bit like they're back at that musty Hacker Hostel. Richard remembers a time when he chickened out of kissing Jared in the garage, right after finding Peter Gregory’s mesh net drafts.

If they had been doing his back then, he wonders if Pied Piper would have ever gotten as far as it already has.

They both come with a jolt and a whimper and Richard wonders, if he returned the favor, maybe Jared might consider offering him the world.

 

* * *

 

They’ve never actually talked about what it was that happened between them.

It’s a Saturday so neither of them have to get up and leave before the other wakes up, but Jared is out early anyway. Richard leans over and spots a mug of coffee and plate of bagels with jam on the bedside table. He wonders if they’re maybe leftovers but Jared doesn’t take his coffee with milk or sugar, and he only ever takes his bagels plain. Richard mostly remembers Jared's breakfast preferences because they’re plain weird and almost a little criminal.

The sheets smell like lime and olives and he doesn’t want to get up yet but he doesn’t want to get too comfortable.

He finds Jared in the kitchen of his condo, scrolling through a tablet. Richard passes behind him and tries to peek at the screen, catching a glimpse of what appears to be an email confirmation for a flight booking.

“Morning,” Richard greets, a little lazily.

Jared looks up from his tablet and smiles at him, wide and earnest, eyes crinkling at the edges. Even after things got weird between them, Jared’s never given him less than his full, undivided attention. “Good morning, Richard,” he says sweetly, and it makes Richard blink. “Just a moment,” he says, finishing something up on his tablet.

Richard sets his mug and plate on the table, and sits on the chair across Jared. He considers Jared's sleep-rumpled hair, the creases on his shirt, the light bone-cracking sound when he stretches his back. Jared is often fastidious about his grooming—neatly combed hair and perfectly pressed shirts, polished shoes and manicured nails. Richard realizes he’s rarely seen Jared outside of his carefully constructed shell of neatness. There was that one time with the godawful jacket.

Jared looks up again, right at him. “You look like there’s something on your mind,” he says, sounding amused and not worried, which feels too foreign.

_This is weird_ , Richard wants to say. Or, otherwise, _this is nice._  Or, were he so bold, _I know you think I’m an asshole which is fair because I was, and that you’ll never trust me as much as you used to but that’s fine, I’m fine, it’s all totally, absolutely, unequivocally fine, but also what fucking game are you trying to play here?_

He pulls out his phone instead and says, “I’ll book an Uber and get out of your way.”

Jared smiles at him again. “I can drive you home,” he offers, a little hopeful tilt at the end that turns the offer into a question.

 

* * *

 

Jared’s car turns to an exit and neither of them have been speaking for the last fifteen minutes. Richard realizes Jared hasn’t been fussing over him or making sure he hasn’t forgotten anything, and that it’s been more than a year since he’s stopped mothering Richard, just like it’s been more than a year since Jared started actively disagreeing with every single decision Richard wants to push for if he thinks it’s a bad idea.

He still catches Jared looking at him fondly from time to time. From a seat at a TED or Recode conference hall, across the boardroom, when he’s discussing R&D with Dinesh and Gilfoyle or targets with Bream-Hall. Just now, in the car, when he thinks Richard isn’t looking.

Jared doesn’t dislike him, as much as Richard wants to think it. He’s just not the same guy who used to let Richard chase down every whim. Richard and Jared versions 1.0 turned Pied Piper into a mess. Richard wonders if this is what a healthy business relationship looks like, and what a sort-of-healthy adult relationship might be.

Richard was so used to getting his way with Jared that any challenge feels like a personal attack. He realizes he’s the one who needs some growing up to do.

“I can change,” he declares, apropos of nothing.

“Whatever for?” Jared answers. He pulls up to another flyover.

“I can be… y’know. Better.” Richard shrugs. “I can try.”

Jared turns to him and places a hand on his knee. His eyes are even bluer in the daylight. He looks like he feels really sorry for Richard. He chuckles a little. “Oh, Richard. There’s really no need to put too much pressure on yourself,” he lies.

_What if I just want to_ , Richard wants to say. He places a hand on the one Jared has on his knee, instead.

 

* * *

 

“I was in love with you,” Jared confesses out of the blue, while they’re both on Richard’s bed, still sinking into an afterglow.

Richard just gives him a look that he hopes succinctly conveys _what?_ Jared threads their fingers together and looks up at the ceiling, wistfully, dopey smile and all.

“During the first month, I think,” Jared continues. “Somewhere in between the champagne and TechCrunch. And I was ready to let you do whatever you pleased. Follow you wherever you tread.” He breathes. “And after the click farm and HooliCon, Gavin Belson, Dan Melcher’s fiancée… I held myself personally responsible.”

Richard snorts. “Well, if you insist on taking all the credit.”

Jared rolls to his side to look Richard in the eye. There they are again, that bright chemical blue. _Listen to me_. He wants Richard to take this seriously.

Richard rolls his eyes in jest. “That’s all me,” he says. “Well, not the click farm. You know what I mean.”

“I was complicit,” Jared says, almost soundlessly. He looks away, staring intently at Richard’s collarbone, all forlorn and guilty. 

In a way, Richard gets it. He’s let people get away with stupid shit in the name of love. Or lust. Infatuation. Whatever it was Jared thought he felt. But Richard is working on not being an asshole. Letting Jared carry all that weight adamantly goes against all valiant attempts to own up to previous assholery. Richard isn't keen on completely changing. Just refactoring some of his more useless functions. The point is he's trying to grow up.

“So what?” He says, blithely.

Jared sighs an affectionate sigh. He plants a kiss to Richard's forehead. His lips, jaw, neck, chest, and down. Richard holds him tightly and braces.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to go for technobabble, pornography, and a character study on awfulness, then decided to abort all of those ideas halfway because I write from raw feeling and nothing else. My emotions don't follow a neat line of logic, so all critique is extra welcome.


End file.
